Preliminary studies for the completion of the doubling of the Suez Canal will be completed within a year and a half. This was announced yesterday by the chairman and director delegate of the Suez Canal Authority, Osama Rabie, explaining that they are feasibility studies, design studies, geophysical and environmental in collaboration with the largest global consulting firms specialising in this sector with the aim of completing them in about 16 months in order to Present the project to the government. Rabie specified that the funds necessary for the realization of the works will come from the future investment plan of the channel authority and will not burden the state budget.

The works of the first phase of the canal expansion, on a length of 35 kilometres from km 60 to km 95, have been inaugurated in the summer of 2015 ( of 6 August 2015). The second phase focuses on a 30 km of the southern part of the canal, from the 132 at kilometre 162, and - Rabie recalled - the 40-metre extension to the east of the waterway, which will be from the current -24 metres to -27 metres, an expansion that increase the transit capacity of the channel of an additional six ships per day.